Why does rocket take off

When the engines are fired, an unbalanced force accelerates the rocket into the sky. The upward force of the thrust from the rocket engines is greater than the downward weight of the rocket. This results in an unbalanced upward force, causing the rocket to accelerate upwards. This unbalanced force accelerates the rocket. This is where Newton's Second Law is applied. Newton's Second Law states that. If the weight is known, then the mass can be calculated. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, ultimately, to Mars.

Liftoff is set for a. Rocket Lab's launch webcast will begin about 20 minutes before liftoff and you can watch that here and at Rocket Lab's website. Today's launch will lift off from Rocket Lab's launch site on the Mahia Peninsula of New Zealand, where the local time will be Thursday afternoon.

Rocket Lab will attempt to recover its Electron first stage from the ocean after launch in its latest test to reuse the rockets. A helicopter will be on the scene, but will not attempt to capture the booster in mid-air.

It will be used for practice only, Rocket Lab has said. Long Beach, California. The helicopter will not attempt a mid-air capture for this mission but will test communications and tracking to refine the concept of operations CONOPS for future Electron aerial capture. Hear conversations between the crew and mission controllers on Earth and watch them work inside the U.

When the crew is off duty, you can enjoy live views of Earth from Space. You can watch and listen in the window below, courtesy of NASA. The video is accompanied by audio of conversations between the crew and Mission Control. This video is only available when the space station is in contact with the ground.

During 'loss of signal' periods, viewers will see a blue screen. When the station is in darkness, external camera video may appear black, but can sometimes provide spectacular views of lightning or city lights below. The more that a rocket's parts can be reused, the cheaper rocket launches can get. Sounding rockets launch high in the air on ballistic arcs, curving into space for five to 20 minutes before they crash back to Earth.

They're most often used for scientific experiments that don't need a lot of time in space. Where exactly is the edge of the space? The answer is surprisingly complex. Suborbital rockets such as Blue Origin's New Shepard are strong enough to temporarily enter space, either for scientific experiments or space tourism.

Orbital-class rockets are powerful enough to launch objects into orbit around Earth. Depending on how big the payload is, they also can send objects beyond Earth, such as scientific probes or sports cars. Ferrying satellites to orbit or beyond requires serious power. For a satellite to remain in a circular orbit miles above Earth's surface, it must be accelerated to more than 16, miles an hour. The Saturn V rocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted more than , pounds of payload into low-Earth orbit during the Apollo missions.

As some rocket makers go big, others are going small to service the growing boom in cheap-to-build satellites no bigger than refrigerators. Rocket Labs's Electron rocket can lift just a few hundred pounds into low-Earth orbit, but for the small satellites it's ferrying, that's all the power it needs. A launch pad is a platform from which a rocket is launched, and they're found at facilities called launch complexes or spaceports. Explore a map of the world's active spaceports.

A typical launch pad consists of a pad and a launch mount, a metal structure that supports the upright rocket before it launches. Umbilical cables from the launch mount provide the rocket with power, cooling liquids, and top-up propellant before launch. The structure also helps shield the rocket from lightning strikes. Different launch complexes have different ways of putting rockets on launch pads.

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the space shuttle was assembled vertically and moved to the launch pad on a tank-like vehicle called a crawler. The Russian space program transports its rockets horizontally by train to the launch pad, where they're then lifted upright.

Launch pads also have features that minimize damage from the rocket's launch. When a rocket first ignites, valves lining the launch pad spray hundreds of thousands of gallons of water into the air around the exhaust, which helps lessen the rocket's deafening roar. Trenches beneath the launch pad also direct the rocket's exhaust out and away from the craft, so the flames can't rise back up and engulf the rocket itself.

There are many launch sites around the world, each with different pros and cons. In general, the closer a launch site is to the Equator, the more efficient it is. That's because the Equator moves faster than Earth's poles as the planet rotates, like the outer edge of a spinning record.

Launch sites at higher latitudes more easily place satellites into orbits that pass over the poles. Between and , 29 spaceports sent satellites or humans into orbit. Many of the sites are still active, including the only three facilities ever to launch humans into orbit.

More spaceports are on the way, both public and private. In , the U. The European Space Agency's spaceport in French Guiana is open to visitors , but the agency encourages travelers to plan ahead. Tourists can visit Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, the storied home of the Soviet and Russian space programs, but only by booking a tour.